WND EXCLUSIVE

Another state implements Obama's gun control

Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after nearly three decades with the Associated Press, as well as several Upper Midwest newspapers, where he covered everything from legislative battles and sports to tornadoes and homicidal survivalists. He is also a photographer whose scenic work has been used commercially.

Colorado lawmakers, who now admit Vice President Joe Biden has been pulling the strings behind their gun-ban votes, have even taken to committing Bidenisms as they implement the White House agenda for gun control.

Salazar’s statement came in a debate over a proposal to ban citizens possessing a concealed-carry permit from being armed on university campuses.

“It’s why we have call boxes,” said Salazar, “it’s why we have safe zones, it’s why we have the whistles. Because you just don’t know who you’re gonna be shooting at.

“And you don’t know if you feel like you’re gonna be raped, or if you feel like someone’s been following you around, or if you feel like you’re in trouble when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop … pop a round at somebody.”

At the time, the Denver Post reported that Rep. Lori Saine, R-Dacono, on the opposite side of the gun debate from Salazar, said, “I guess, Rep. Salazar, if a woman doesn’t know she’s being raped, she doesn’t fear it.”

Now, as state lawmakers in the Centennial State advance a series of seven bills that Second Amendment supporters are opposing, another lawmaker has sounded off.

It came during a hearing on the conceal-carry bill Salazar referenced.

Amanda Collins, 27, of Reno, Nev., was testifying before a committee on which state Sen. Evie Hudak, D-Westminster, sat. According to the Post, Collins was telling her story about being assaulted and explained that had she been carrying a concealed weapon, the incident might have ended differently.

“I just want to say that, actually statistics are not on your side even if you had a gun,” Hudak said. “And, chances are that if you would have had a gun, then he would have been able to get that from you and possibly use it against you.”

Hudak continued, speaking over the committee witness, “The Colorado Coalition Against Gun Violence says that every one woman who used a handgun in self-defense, 83 here are killed by them.”

Finally able to resume her testimony, Collins said, “Senator, you weren’t there. I know without a doubt [the outcome would have been different with a gun].

“He already had a weapon,” she told the meeting of the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee. “He didn’t need mine.”

The senator’s remarks were “outrageous,” said Dave Kopel, a University of Denver Law School professor.

The author of a book on firearms law and policy, he said the senator revealed her “self-righteous, ignorant bigotry.”

WND previously reported that Biden did some arm-twisting to push the Colorado lawmakers into doing what the White House wants.

Colorado’s flurry of gun-control bills include one that would hold gun makers and owners responsible for any crimes committed by their weapons, even if they were stolen.

“The first thing the Democrats did was introduce a bill that would have declared an unloaded gun to be a deadly weapon,” said Saine. “This would enable police to confiscate any firearm on the basis it is a deadly weapon, even if it is unloaded.”

The other bills that started the campaign were:

HB 1224 would ban all magazines that hold more than 15 rounds.

HB 1226 would prohibit those with concealed-carry permits, including off-duty police officers and former military personnel, from bringing their weapons on college campuses.

HB 1228 would force residents to pay for exercising a constitutional right by making them pay for a background check to prove they are not criminals. There is no limit on the amount the Colorado Bureau of Investigation could charge for the background check.

HB 1229 bans the private sale and transfer of firearms and institutes universal background checks and gun registration for all Colorado gun owners.

The Democrats in the legislature now also are trying to define concealed-carry permit training, create a liability for guns and expand gun bans for those accused of domestic violence.

All the bills are moving forward through the legislative process.

Several lawmakers confirmed Biden’s intervention, including reports of pressure for the gun ban votes in exchange for promises of campaign cash and support during their reelection bids in 2014.

“What he essentially did was tell these Democrats to fall on their swords in order to pass the president’s agenda, which is ultimately about gun confiscation,” Saine said at the time. “What they need to realize is that these promises are almost never kept, and come next year, they will be left to face angry voters on their own.”

While some have asked why the administration has chosen to so forcefully insert itself into what should be a state issue, Saine said there is a very clear agenda at work.

“The consensus appears to be that Obama wants all of these gun bills passed in order to use as a model for other states to emulate,” she said.

“If they can pass these draconian bills in a state like Colorado, it can have an effect on other states beyond the progressive states like California and New York,” she said. ‘The issue goes beyond us; our state is literally a battleground for gun rights and personal safety through self-defense right now.”

Tony Exhum, a Democratic lawmaker from Colorado Springs, told the Post that Biden said “it would send a strong message to the rest of the country that a Western state had passed gun-control bills.”

House Speaker Mark Ferrandino also tacitly admitted the gun-control bills introduced by Democrats have national implications.

“I was shocked that he called. He said he thought the bills could help them on a national level,” he said.

The issue, however, is creating a backlash. The Washington Times reported that more than 100 firearms dealers across the nation say they will stop selling guns to government and law enforcement officials in New York and other states unless those same firearms are also available to average citizens.

In Colorado, Magpul, a maker of ammunition magazines, has promised to leave the state if Democrats have their way with gun laws, taking hundreds of jobs. Beretta has made similar statements about leaving Maryland.

The report said Texas-based LaRue Tactical just weeks ago changed its policy to “limit all sales [to governments] to what law-abiding citizens residing in their districts can purchase or possess” because it did not want to risk triggering lawsuits with new gun laws either passed or pending.

“If you write the law, you live under the law, no special category of people just because you’re a government employee,” Sean Sorrentino, a gun-rights advocate who keeps a tally at ncgunblog.com of companies that are adopting those kinds of policies, told the Times.

Salazar’s statement was caught on video:

It also was reported at Philly.com that the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs’ Department of Public Safety suggested women “tell your attacker that you have a disease or are menstruating” to fend off an assault.

The threatened women also should be aware “vomiting or urinating may also convince the attacker to leave you alone,” the school said.

The Denver Post has reported hundreds of Coloradans went to the statehouse to comment on the gun bills, and sheriffs from across the state have testified that the proposals are unenforceable.